Unsought Input

In a recent study the good old US of A was ranked 39th out of 149 countries in an environmental study that looked at countries overall environmental policies and emissions.  We were not the worst though.  I know I was saying stuff about China cleaning up for the Olympics before but they apparently have quiet a long way to go since they are currently competing with India for the least environmentally friendly country around.

Either way it’s probably time we do something about this, though.  I mean, where is our drive to win?  Our burning desire to fight and conquer and take over and WIN!!!? So, we just need to make this a challenge or a competition or a major TV show like American Gladiators.  If we had some type of zany game show to make people want to do environmentally friendly things we might be able to beat out other Costa Rica (who ranked fifth) or at least Japan (who ranked 21st).  I mean, all we need is a little bit of good old fashioned patriotism applied to saving the environment and people would just eat it up.  I know you could consider this technique to be  tricking the American public into doing something they wouldn’t normally do for a small prize or other’s amusement but I can’t really see any other way to make lazy people want to go out of their way do to anything.  Maybe I am not trying hard enough myself.  I know that if there was some crazy recycling game where I could win money or prizes I would totally be playing.

As far as corporations go, we could make a new TV show like The Office but with a company that has environmental hyjinks always ensuing.  Or we could just make them actually follow the regulations that would lower their emissions and pollution.  But hyjinks are always more fun.

Lately we have been uber-enviro-nerds with the talk of wind turbines, deep lake cooling and environmentally friendly roller coasters. I just felt the need to put up another nifty energy saving device that was invented by a Bloke from the UK named Peter Hughes. He has created a ramp that absorbs kinetic energy from breaking or slowing down while driving your car over regular roadways. The idea is simple, use the cars wasted kinetic energy to power the streetlights and stoplights. There are a series of plates installed under the road which the cars will drive over, more than likely around stop lights or other areas where the traffic will be slowed. The weight of the car slightly shifts the plates, causing kinetic energy to be created. The energy is stored and then used to power whatever. It is better described on the official site, so I will just do you a favor and quote it here.

The ramp is unobtrusive, silent in operation, causes no
discomfort to the vehicles occupants and is entirely safe in
operation. The Ramp is designed to require the minimum
of maintenance and may be used for generating electricity
to power street lighting, traffic lights, road signs, with
the surplus being fed into the national grid. It also has the
capability to store electricity within a storage battery
facility.

I also found a video that you can watch that shows this in action.

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